I kept Sahara Sand as the main color, but used Emerald Envy as my accent color. I figured the tiny dragonfly from Swan Lake worked well as something similar to (but different than) the large polka dots, and instead of lace I used some linen thread.

Instead of the doilies pictured on the sketch, I did a bit of paper piercing on the sides but honestly I wish I'd left that off altogether. Hmm.

Anyway, that's it for me today; I'm now working on another scrapbook layout. So far I've done 22 pages this year, which is quite the surprise to me...I know that's going to change very soon here. But I'll enjoy the scrappin' while I can.

Monday, January 30, 2017

Edited to add: I set this up last night to post today, and woke up to two inches of snow outside. How's that for good timing? ;)

Scrappy Monday, y'all! How's it going today? I'm hanging in there and still pregnant :p Hubs and I are taking bets as to when Sodapop will arrive.

These pictures are from last year's giant snowstorm that was over my birthday weekend :) Dang, why is this photo so dark of the layout?? Anyway, click to embiggen. Hubs got almost an entire week off of work due to the snow, so we used the time to play with the dogs and build a giant snowbear and then we had to dig out the car because eventually hubs did have to go back to work.

There's a closeup of some of the letters and rest assured the dog hair is not a permanent part of the layout. My friend Tiana made us a sign once that says "Home is where the dog hair sticks to everything but the dog!" and that is 1000000% TRUE. Thanks, Sadie.

And here's a bonus second layout! Sooooo I've got an album of pictures of my dogs because when my yellow lab Chewie died, I realized I didn't have a lot of pictures of him despite spending a LOT of time with him. So we do make an effort to take pictures of our two doglets and yes I'm the crazy person with a dog scrapbook. Anyway, we took so many cute pictures of them during Snowmageddon that I decided to make a layout for their book in addition to the other layout above. But I figured why reinvent the wheel, so I did basically the same layout, except I squeezed in three photos on the top right instead of two. Sadie wishes it would snow like this again because she totally loves the snow, but so far nothing doing.

The color palette that's much brighter in person: Whisper White, Tempting Turquoise, Cucumber Crush, and Melon Mambo. Seriously, why did the pictures of these layouts come out so dark? Grr.

Saturday, January 28, 2017

Happy Saturday, y'all! I'm here with another bear book layout, and we're back to another one I like a lot. Check it out:

I tried to work in green and gold on as many layouts as I could, and can I just say how much I love Blackberry Bliss with the more traditional fall colors? It just makes me happy.

There's my favorite SU! bear stamp from Thankful Forest Friends. I looooooove that stamp set and wish it had continued in the big catalog, but regardless it's got a permanent place in my collection. The leaves are from a much older set called Falling Leaves, and I seriously love that stamp set too.

On another note, as of today I am officially 39 weeks pregnant; February 4 is my due date. We're taking guesses as to when Sodapop will actually arrive, and in the meantime I am still trying to work on some scrapbook pages :D Cheers, y'all!

Thursday, January 26, 2017

I took four pictures of this card, and the copper dragonflies either reflected back like this, or else came across just looking dark.

I promise the copper looks pretty great on the dragonflies IRL. So anyway, this is my card for the new Freshly Made Sketch:

I got the idea to use the dragonfly die pretty much as soon as I saw this sketch, it just took a while to get the card put together because I was fiddling with the placement of the circles of patterned paper. Those are all from the Moroccan DSP, love that stuff :) The sentiment is the only thing that's stamped on here and let's be honest, that "Don't quit your daydream" stamp is the whole reason why I got Designer Tee (it's another Sale-a-Bration set). I'd like that stamp in a bigger size too.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Oooooooh look I made a card on a Wednesday! Probably because I didn't go to the gym today. I felt like I was busybusybusy all day long yesterday and I kinda felt like I needed a little break, especially since I did still take my doglets for a walk this morning. But anyway, it's been good to spend some time in the craft cave today! And still playing with new toys :D

Friends, meet the Sale-a-Bration set Avant Garden. It's photopolymer, so I stamped the flowers without using my Stamp-a-ma-jig...except for the stamens part. And the sentiment, because it's a pet peeve when my sentiments are crooked. But the flowers, leaves and stems? All unaided.

I used Mint Macaron, Pink Pirouette, and Pool Party for my colors. Hmm, the swatch there makes the pink look more like Blushing Bride, but Pink Pirouette tends to be forgotten in color challenges and I personally like it better than Blushing Bride :p

At the last minute I had to add some teeny pearls to the flowers so once again I can enter at Cupcake Inspirations:

I have to say, it would be pretty awesome to have some darker half-back pearls from Stampin' Up! to go with the regular pearl-colored pearls. Not black, but like a gunmetal color? Preeeetttyyyy.

Well, if I leave now I can go pick up dog food before traffic gets too wild and crazy. Cheers, y'all!

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Hey kids! IT'S MY BIRFDAY today and I've been really busy. I had a doc appointment this afternoon with several other pregos (yeah, I do my OB appointments as part of a group, it's actually kind of fun) so I made cupcakes and some cookie dough dip for the appointment this morning. But I managed to squeeze in some craft room time after I got home, despite my little girl dog laying down where she could be the most in the way. I swear I made this card while sitting six feet back from my craft table...though I suppose with the beach ball belly I'm already having to sit at least a little ways back anyway ;)

More new goodies from Stampin' Up! that I got as a birthday present from ME ;) This is the Lift Me Up bundle of stamps and Framelits, plus the coordinating patterned paper in the Sale-A-Bration catalog. The inside of the card has the birthday sentiment from the same stamp set (Hope your day is on cloud nine. Happy Birthday). Anyway, the gang at As You See It is back after having their website hacked, so I wanted to play along in their first challenge of the year:

One of my bestest buddies has a birthday in a couple of days so I'll be sending this along to her in the mail tomorrow. But for right now, my sweetie pie just got home so we're going out to dinner for my birthday. Cheers, y'all!

Monday, January 23, 2017

Scrappy Monday, y'all! Today's layout is going to make Missy squee with joy because she's on it :)

Click to embiggen. These are a bunch of goofy pictures we took while we were in Spain; I collected them all in one place and now they are immortalized on a scrapbook layout. Those for pics on the bottom left? That's Bennet doing a flying roundhouse kick (and then he had to take a lot of aspirin). The rest are just shots of us goofing off...after a while you get tired of smiling pretty for the camera! (If you're interested in seeing all the Spain pics, check them out here.) I particularly like that last shot in the lower right of my hubs striking a pose.

I wanted a bright and fun color palette for these photos, so I went with a Gable Green page base and accent colors in Pacific Point, Poppy Parade, and Basic Black. I've got the pictures out to do a couple more layouts for Spain...I'm trying to get as many pages done as I can before Sodapop arrives :)

Friday, January 20, 2017

Happy Friday afternoon, y'all, and welcome to the Friday Flashback. This week's stamp set is Elements of Style, which is a lovely vintage-kinda style stamp set which debuted in 2010. So let's get started!

Also features By the Seashore, Pursuit of Happiness, Perfectly Penned

The flourish behind the postage stamp-style element is the stamp that's from Elements of Style. Hey Stampin' Up!, we need more flourishy stamps like this.

Also features Pursuit of Happiness

The real reason I got the stamp set: the hummingbird. Also that ribbon is actually Marina Mist to match the hummingbird stamp, it just really doesn't look it in the photo.

Also features Fabulous Phrases

There's a big toile stamp in the set in addition to that flourish, both fun.

Also features Papillon Potpourri and Perfectly Penned

Another one with the flourish!

And hey,t here's a card that has one of the Elements of Style sentiments on it. So there's your flashback, here's today's new card:

Seems like all my card photos are under-exposed lately. Well, we've been socked in with clouds for what seems like forever (it's a giant swamp outside) and I really think my little camera is on its last legs. But anyway, that's the new card...and the sentiment is a bit crooked but I'm going to write that off as proof that this is homemade. And it's going in the mail within the next week.

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Hey kids! Apparently my new year's schedule doesn't include posting on Wednesdays, this is the second week in a row I haven't gotten to do a card for the middle of the week. Guess it's just too much to go to the gym, do the grocery shopping, make lasagna and get a blog post in ;) But now it's Thursday so I've got something to share!

This isn't a great picture of this card, I took more than one and just couldn't get a really great one so trust me when I say this looks better IRL. And it's a triple challenge card, starting with the Cupcake Inspirations color challenge:

At first I thought baby with those colors, but then I decided to make the card a little more generic 'cause love and hugs could be for anything. Babies included ;) I used Marina Mist and Blushing Bride as my SU! colors (and of course gold is still gold).

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Hey kids! How's it going? It is a gray and rainy day where I am, but that's okay by me because I've been having a good time in my craft room. I got a card made a couple hours ago and started work on a scrapbook layout and then I Skyped with my friend Missy (HI MISSY!!!) so it's 4:30 and I'm just now getting this post written.

But guess what? I got NEW SCHTUFF as an early birthday present to meeee!

And of course the first new thing I had to break out was the Dragonfly Dreams bundle, which is an awesome stamp set with dragonflies and bees and sentiments and other stuff, plus a set of coordinating Framelits and I just wanna hug 'em and squeeze 'em and call 'em George. I considered tying some Emerald Envy ribbon between the patterned paper and the white bokeh layer, do you think it needs that extra touch? And oh yeah, the dragonfly was painted with clear Wink of Stella for some sparkle.

I chose Emerald Envy for my third color and somehow (I'm not at all sure how I did this) I ended up with two green thumbs plus several other green fingers. I mean, I'm not really a tidy stamper, but in general I don't get *that* much ink on myself. Anyway, I stamped the sentiment on the black card base with Whisper White ink and it just wasn't oomphy enough, so I heat embossed it with white EP which means I can enter the embossing challenge over at SUO Challenges too!

Okay, I wanna get my scrapbook layout done today so I'm going to head on back downstairs to the craft cave. Cheers, y'all!

Monday, January 16, 2017

Scrappy Monday, y'all! Today is something slightly different--a couple of scrapbook pages that I made and framed and sent to Missy and Bennet as a belated Christmas present. I didn't take pictures of them in the frames because the glass makes such a glare, so here's the two pages I made:

For Bennet, a commemoration of the running joke that will never die. So on our trip to China in 2010 (wow that long ago!!!), we went to a McDonald's for lunch one day and somehow Lee and Bennet accidentally switched drinks. No big except Bennet had a cold so then Lee got it. And then Bennet started calling it The Merge and we actually have not one but TWO Merge street signs in our house now. So I made a special one for Bennet with one of the pics from McDonald's where The Merge happened. For the M, I just Googled "golden arches" and printed off one on regular computer paper, then attached the image to cardstock with removable adhesive and cut it out. Peel off the computer paper and voila, cardstock golden arches. P.S. Notice that the patterned paper is skull & crossbones!!

For Missy I chose this picture of the four of us squished into a little cubby to sleep at the eighth station on Mount Fuji. What is it about the four of us and excessive togetherness? ;) Since it was for Missy, of course I used green and gold for the main colors (I actually used that same patterned paper for all the Fuji pages in my own scrapbooks). What tripped me up was the color to do for the letters...I stamped them first in Marina Mist, cut them all out and then thought it looked too gray. So then I stamped them in Pacific Point and cut them all out but it still didn't look quite right on the Garden Green cardstock. So I stamped them a THIRD time in Tempting Turquoise and that finally worked. Then I added the Thankful Forest Friends bear because again, it's Missy. Green + gold + bear = Missy.

A couple of black frames and they were done. Although since my mom has given me a complex about how navy blue and black don't go together, Bennet's page kinda made my eye twitch after I got it framed. Oops. Well, not everyone has the same color hang-ups that I do, and I know that almost all of the frames in their house are black so I was going for something that would match what they already have.

Friday, January 13, 2017

Happy Friday, y'all! Once again I didn't get in my craft cave until a lot later in the day than I planned...I had an accidental two-hour nap in the middle of the day (oops). But here I am and today's Friday Flashback stamp set is Choose Happiness!

Also features Petite Pairs, Hardwood

I think this is my favorite of the older cards for this set, I just like the soft watercolor on the background panels.

Stampy collages aren't really my forte, but I keep trying anyway.

Also features Gorgeous Grunge

And this one uses a lot of colored embossing powder and was a cooler idea in my head than it is on paper. So that's it for the Flashback, here is my new creation:

It's got several layers, but it's still totally flat and easily mailable. I stamped the flowers, then sponged that whole panel while making the flowers darker, and then I used the script stamp from French Foliage to fill in the empty spaces around the flowers a bit. Didn't take long and I like how it turned out, all with just one color of ink. I ran the edges of the panel on my Basic Black ink pad to give them a little definition on the card front.

I used Basic Black, Crushed Curry, and Marina Mist for the colors. At first I thought this combo was really similar to the one I had trouble with earlier this week, but I think my problem with that one was mustard + silver. Granted, today I used Crushed Curry instead of Delightful Dijon (lighter kind of mustard, maybe) but I think I like it a lot better with black than silver.